Shin Hati

Shin Hati remembered the first time she saw her. It was long before Peridea, when Baylan and Ahsoka had crossed paths for a tense negotiation neither expected to last. Shin stood behind her master, rigid and unreadable, a blade waiting to be drawn. Ahsoka’s padawan stood behind her own master with a kind of steady calm Shin did not understand—quiet, composed, watching everything with eyes that softened rather than hardened. Their gazes met only once, a glance so brief it should have dissolved into nothing, but Shin found herself replaying it in the days that followed. She hated that it lingered the way it did, like a grain of sand stuck beneath skin.

The next time they met, it was war. On Seatos, with white leaves drifting like dying snow, their blades clashed in a frenzy of light and breath. Shin attacked as she had been trained—precise, merciless, her strikes fueled by something she did not want to name. The woman defended with quiet strength, her movements soft but sure, her presence steady rather than frantic. When Shin’s saber grazed her shoulder, just enough to draw blood, something in her stuttered. She should have pressed the advantage; she should have cut deeper. Instead she hesitated, confused by the sudden pull in her chest, long enough for the woman to throw her back with the Force and escape. Shin stared after her retreating form until the last flicker of movement disappeared, fury storming inside her. When she realized she’d frozen mid-kill, she slammed her fist into the nearest tree trunk until her knuckles split open. Baylan noticed the blood but said nothing. Shin wished she could have torn the hesitation out of herself like a weed.

The dreams began soon after. Strange, silent visions of the woman—not battling, not speaking, simply standing at the edge of Shin’s consciousness, turning toward her with unreadable eyes. Sometimes she reached for Shin, and Shin woke gasping, trembling, overwhelmed by something that felt like fear but burned in the wrong place. She tried meditation. She tried doubling her training. She tried pain. A blocked strike that cracked her wrist. A deliberate misstep that bruised her knees. Saber drills repeated until the skin of her palms tore open. Every time she caught herself thinking about the woman’s steady gaze or quiet strength, she punished herself, hoping the hurt would disrupt whatever weakness was taking root inside her. But the more she punished herself, the more vivid the dreams became, as if the pain carved the woman’s shape deeper into her mind.

Peridea made everything worse. The ancient world had too much silence, too much emptiness for thoughts to hide beneath. Shin began seeing the woman in flashes—standing between the fractured stone spires, leaning against distant ruins, watching her through drifting fog. Each time Shin blinked, the figure vanished. Sometimes she whispered into the emptiness, “You’re not real.” Other times, without meaning to, she whispered, “Please be real.” She knew she was spiraling, losing her grip on reality, but she couldn’t stop herself. Some nights she scratched red lines into her arm until the sting steadied her breathing. Other nights she curled her hand so tightly around her saber hilt that the edges dug into her palm and left half-moon wounds.

When all four of them reached Peridea—Ahsoka, Baylan, Shin, and the padawan—her unraveling only accelerated. Shin sensed the woman’s presence the night before she saw her; the air around her felt different, sharper, as if the planet was holding its breath. And when the woman finally stepped out of the fog, saber glowing faintly at her side, Shin startled back as if she’d been caught in a crime. She attacked immediately, her blade savage and unsteady, her breath ragged with something that was not battle-rage. The woman defended again, clearly shaken by Shin’s volatility. When their sabers locked, the woman murmured, “You’re shaking.” Shin hissed, “Shut up,” but her voice cracked in a way she couldn’t hide. The woman’s eyes softened—not pity, not fear, something else—and the flicker of concern in them nearly broke Shin’s composure entirely. They separated when Ahsoka called her padawan away, the sound of retreating footsteps echoing through the stone corridor. Shin stood staring long after the woman disappeared, then dug her nails into her palm until she felt warm blood trickling between her fingers.

After Baylan left to chase his own path, Shin did not follow. It wasn’t independence. It was obsession. She kept seeing glimpses of the woman in the fog—sometimes a hallucination, sometimes a memory, sometimes nothing at all—but every shadow looked like her, every quiet echo sounded like her breath. Shin wandered the desolate plains until her mind throbbed with exhaustion, whispering to herself, “You’re not real,” and then, contradictorily, “Why won’t you leave me?” She was almost relieved by the idea that she might be losing her mind; madness was easier to understand than the ache she felt when she remembered the way the woman had looked at her during their second fight.

Then she found her.

Shin almost didn’t see the body at first—slumped among jagged rocks, half buried in dust, barely distinguishable from the dead landscape. She approached cautiously, convinced it was another vision, another punishment from her weakening mind. “No,” she whispered. “You’re not real. You’re just another trick.” But the closer she came, the more the world sharpened: the torn fabric, the blood seeping into the ground, the shallow rise and fall of a dying breath. Shin knelt, trembling violently, and touched the woman’s cheek. Warm. Solid. Human. Real. Her heart nearly collapsed under the weight of it.

“You’re really here,” she whispered, horror and relief tangling in her voice. “You’re actually here.” She was shaking so hard she almost dropped her. Instead she gathered the woman into her arms and held her as if holding something that had haunted her for months. She repeated the same desperate words over and over—“Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die”—the way someone repeats a prayer they’ve never learned how to say. Every step toward the cave felt like walking through water, one wrong movement away from shattering completely.

Inside the cave, she worked frantically, clumsily, tearing strips from her own clothing to bind the wound. Her hands shook too violently to be precise; several times she pressed too hard, and when the woman winced, Shin recoiled as if struck. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, breathless and frantic. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t touch you. I shouldn’t be here.” She paced in circles, muttering nonsense under her breath, hands tangled in her hair, arms scratched raw from the restless spirals she drew across her own skin. But every time the woman’s breathing faltered, Shin was instantly kneeling beside her, gripping her hand tightly, terrified of losing the only thing in the galaxy that made her feel anything at all.

When the woman finally stirred, Shin jolted upright so sharply she nearly slipped on the stone floor. A faint groan, a twitch of fingers, the soft drag of breath—then the woman’s eyes opened, hazy and searching. “You...?” she whispered.

Shin’s breath choked. The woman’s hand drifted weakly toward her, brushing her wrist. Shin made a small, broken sound—a laugh, a sob, she couldn’t tell. “You’re real,” she whispered, voice trembling. “I kept seeing you, but you weren’t… I thought I made you up.”